Brazil to overtake UK as sixth-largest economy

Brazil will overtake the UK to become the world's sixth biggest economy this
year, according to new projections.

The Latin American giant's GDP for 2011 is expected to hit $2.44 trillion (£1.51 trillion) compared with $2.43 trillion for the UK, the latest monthly forecasts from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) show.

This will see Brazil, which last year overtook Italy to become the world's seventh biggest economy, move up one more place to sixth with the UK falling to seventh.

Robert Wood, the EIU's chief economist on Brazil, said the country's surge up the table owed much to a growing consumer class and a booming trade relationship with China, based on the Asian giant's need for commodities such as soy and iron ore.

"It's partly the story of the lower income classes rising up in Brazil to join the middle-class and partly the sheer size of the population of nearly 200m," said Mr Wood.

"This also links in with Brazil's emergence in terms of being dragged up by demand from China. We are in the middle of a commodity super-cycle that will last for some time but at some point the really good times Brazil is enjoying will cool off a bit."

According to the EIU, Brazil will lose sixth place to India in 2013 but regain it in 2014 – the year it will host the World Cup - when its GDP overtakes that of France.

The forecasts suggest that Brazil's economy will be bigger than any in Europe by 2020 when it overtakes Germany to become the fifth biggest globally – after China, by then the world's leading economy measured in dollars, the US, India and Japan.

The UK will find itself placed ninth in the global league table in 2020, predicts EIU, with Germany sixth, Russia seventh and France eighth.

Brazil grew by 7.5pc last year after comfortably weathering the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. The EIU predicts it will see growth of 3pc this year and 3.5pc in 2012, compared with 0.7pc for both years in the UK.